


Happy, Used To Be

by Lookafterlou1234



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Harry Lives, Hartwin, M/M, Oops, basically exploring what their reunion would be like, haven't written fic in forever, idk what this is yet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-05-18
Packaged: 2018-11-01 05:39:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10915455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lookafterlou1234/pseuds/Lookafterlou1234
Summary: The one where Eggsy has a baby sister to potty train, nightmares he can't stop, and a world to save.Again.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Out of Mind" by Tove Lo

_“You know what this is like?”_

_The crazed environmentalist was standing directly across from him, lips curled into a half smile, half sneer. His golden tooth glinted in the strong Kentucky sun. Gazelle was behind him, looking- quite accurately- deadly beautiful. She swayed slightly on her bionic legs, her dark eyes fixated on Valentine._

_“It’s like those old movies we both love.”_

_Now that the adrenaline of the fight was leaving him, he could feel the injuries he’d sustained. His ribcage began to ache, most likely from when he’d slammed into the tile floors of the church, and the proverbial spell had been temporarily broken._

_“Now I’m gonna tell you my whole plan and then I’m gonna come up with some absurd and convoluted way to kill you and you’ll find an equally convoluted way to escape.”_

_He could still see the civilians, for that’s what they were. Hate crazed, bigoted civilians, but civilians nonetheless. And he’d killed them….He could feel their warm blood staining his clothes. Bile rose up in his throat, but he quickly swallowed it down to speak._

_“Sounds good to me.”_

_Valentine smiled wider, his mouth quirking up into a grimace. He kept his eyes trained firmly on the madman, too well trained to panic. Too well trained to look around and search for the backup that was-hopefully- on it’s way to this backwater._

_“Well, this ain’t that kinda movie.”_

_He found himself staring down a handgun. A distant part of his brain identified it as a 2mm Kolibri. 2.7mm cartridge. Austria-Hungarian, circa 1914. It was a mere foot away: there was no way Valentine could miss. The environmentalist turned his head to avoid looking at the imminent spray of blood and pulled the trigger._

_He closed his eyes before the impact came, not wanting this to be the last thing he’d see. He cast his thoughts around for a happy memory, shifting through the years of bad. His brain landed on a single image: a smile._

_Cheeky._

_Dimpled._

_Beautiful enough to get lost in._

_Even during this._

_The lens of his Kingsman glasses shattered first. Then the pain came. And as he hit the ground, he thought he heard someone scream,  
“NO!”_

 

Eggsy Unwin woke with a start, sitting bolt upright in bed. He pressed a hand to his chest, feeling his heart race against his palm. He took a shuddering breath, feeling the air rasp against his dry throat, and passed a trembling hand down his face. 

“Fuckin’ hell.” Eggsy mumbled to himself, twisting around in his bedsheets to get a look at the clock. 3:23 AM. Even by Kingsman’s (and now, Eggsy’s) standards, it was too early. He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, seeing stars at the pressure. He groaned low in his throat, then hanging his head so his chin bumped against his Adam’s apple. 

Slipping out of bed, Eggsy padded across his bedroom floor, the hardwood floorboards cold against his bare feet. He walked to the toilet down the hall from his room, pushing the door open. The spy flicked the light on, squinting at its brightness, and then went to the sink. Leaning against it, he sighed deeply and then looked into the mirror. 

Green eyes stared back at him, not as bright as they once were. Unruly blonde hair sat atop his head, mussed on one side from where he’d slept on it. Lines of exhaustion were etched around his eyes and mouth, put there by sleepless night after sleepless night. 

It was always the same nightmare, ending with Eggsy gazing down the barrel of a gun. Some times were worse, more detailed, than others. Tonight had been particularly vivid, worse than he could remember...Once, while staying the night after a drunken pub crawl on their rare night off, Roxy had heard him thrashing around in his sleep. She’d nonchalantly suggested some sleeping pills at breakfast the next morning, spewing some bullshit that Kingsman and it’s accompanying paranoia had really affected her own sleeping habits. But looking at himself now, Eggsy could see where she was coming from. Except, he truly didn’t want the nightmares to stop, because that would mean he’d begun to forget. And that was something Eggsy Unwin would never allow himself to do. 

Eggsy inhaled through his nose, breaking the eye contact with himself. He switched the tap on and ran his hands under it. He splashed his face with the cold water, briskly shaking himself awake. He knew that going back to bed was futile, he’d tried that before and failed. Besides, things at Saville Row would undoubtedly be starting soon, he could head in early and get some dreaded paperwork from his last mission in Australia done. He hadn’t _meant_ for the Sydney Opera House to blow up, but sometimes, these things couldn’t just be helped. The least he could do would be to get the necessary reports to Merlin on time. 

Eggsy felt his lips twitch into a small smile. Would you look at him, Eggsy fuckin’ Unwin, being productive at an ungodly hour of the morning. It’d be enough to make anyone proud, maybe even Harry Har-

Abruptly, Eggsy turned on his heel, slamming his hand down on the light and switching it off. He closed the toilet door behind him and strode down the hall, planning on what bespoke suit to wear today. As he got dressed, he didn’t bother looking in the mirror. He’d had a good teacher in how to dress as a gentleman, and besides, he didn’t need a mirror to tell him how he looked. 

Eggsy looked haunted. 

Even after two years.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgot to mention that I don't have a beta and also this isn't Brit-picked so please bear with me XD  
> Hope you enjoy this chapter! I have no idea what the plot line of the next film is, so when I reference Poppy, it's purely from my imagination!

“Dais’,” Eggsy said, trying to keep his voice as patient as possible. “You ain’t gonna fall inta the toilet if ya sit on it.”

You’d think that being a pickpocket-turned- gentleman’s spy, Eggsy would be impossible to hear moving around his house in the morning. But unfortunately, no: his heavy tread had been enough to wake his three-year-old sister. Or maybe she just had superhuman hearing or something. Eggsy wouldn’t really be surprised at this point. 

That’s how Eggsy found himself kneeling down on the bathroom floor, eye to eye with Daisy, who somehow managed to look fiercely stubborn with a Doc McStuffins pacifier in her mouth. She’d come running to him in the kitchen, with a look of panic and doing a funny little dance that Eggsy had quickly come to associate with _needing to wee right now_. He’d scooped her up, rushed to the loo in a run that would’ve put nearly every Kingsman’s 100 meter sprint to shame, and quickly stripped his sister out of her onesie. Only for the toddler to get cold feet at the last minute and resolutely refuse to sit on the porcelain throne.   
“We gotcha a special seat and everythin’, Daisy!” he said encouragingly, gesturing to the pink floral plastic potty on top of the actual toilet. 

“No Eggy.” Daisy said, shaking her head vehemently. 

At this, Eggsy stifled a smile. His little sis still couldn’t quite manage her S’s. To some, this might’ve been cause for concern, but Eggsy and his mum weren’t particularly worried. Honestly, they were just happy that Daisy was finally speaking at all. 

In the months following V-Day, the little thing had seemingly gone mute, right around the time that a child her age should’ve been mastering speech. She would just sit in silence, staring wordlessly at her two guardians with those big doe eyes Eggsy loved so much. He’d nonchalantly brought the matter up to one of the Kingsman medics once, and her brief explanation for Daisy’s silence was that she could’ve been suffering from PTSD. Given the abusive household she’d spent her earliest days in with Dean, and then the horror that was V-Day, the medic rationalized that Daisy was silent because if she didn’t make noise, no one could find her and hurt her.   
Hearing that, Eggsy could’ve sworn he felt what was left of his useless heart break in two. Since that day, he’d done everything he could to make sure that Daisy felt as safe as possible. Essentially by taking out Dean’s gang one by one, so none of them could come slinking back into any of their lives. Thankfully, V-Day had effectively seen to Dean’s demise, so that was one less murder in cold blood that he’d needed Merlin to erase from his record. It wouldn’t have looked good, given Kingsman’s “Preserve life at all costs” mantra. 

Not that Merlin minded. After hearing about Daisy, he wanted to help, despite the quartermaster never being permitted in the field. 

“Tell you what,” Eggsy said conspiratorially, tilting his head to the side and putting his hand to his chin in a pondering expression. The toddler mimicked him, her nose scrunching up adorably with suppressed giggles. “If you at least try to sit on the potty, I’ll sneak you one of those Digestive biscuits you love before you go and cuddle with Mummy and I leave for work?”

“Okay, Eggy.” Daisy whispered, loving the secrecy behind the whole thing. Maybe there was another Kingsman in the making in the Unwin family. 

“Atta-girl.” Eggsy replied winningly, lifting his little sister up by the armpits and sitting her on the loo. As he did so, he saw that the Dora the Explorer Pull-Up around her waist was already soaking wet. He bit back a laugh before shaking his head in defeat and helping her down again, already reaching under the sink to grab a fresh diaper. Maybe they’d crack the potty tomorrow. Maybe. A man can dream. 

“Can I still ‘ave the biscuit, Eggy?”

“ O’ course, Dais. You tried, didn’tcha? And I’m a man of me word.”

Eggsy arrived at Saville Row at 6:45, after having a healthy breakfast of Digestives and hot chocolate with Daisy. He’d smuggled her in bed with their mother before leaving the flat, making sure to firmly lock the door behind him. He could’ve called a Kingsman taxi, or even a regular taxi- there were plenty to be had at that hour- but he wanted the walk to clear his head. It was a fresh autumn day in London: briskly cold and somewhat damp. You could practically taste the imminent rain in the air. He held his Rainmaker in one hand, wantonly dragging the tip along the uneven pavement. Merlin would probably kill him for that later, in case it suddenly started firing or something, but Eggsy couldn’t find it in himself to care in that moment. 

What was that old movie? Where the bloke swung around lampposts in the rain and shit? Eggsy furrowed his brow, trying to think of the title. He’d watched it at one of the local libraries “Retro Movie Nights” when he was a teenager. It was the same place he’d been introduced to _My Fair Lady_. 

Fuckin’ hell, it had Gene Kelly in it, Eggsy can picture his face…

 

_Singin’ in the Rain_!

Satisfied, Eggsy smiled smugly to himself, knowing it’d come to him eventually. He started to hum the tune song underneath his breath as he approached the tailor shop. He took the steps three at a time and then turned with his back to the door, looking out at the foggy London street. Eggsy took a deep breath, letting the tranquility over the moment wash over him. And as he took a deep breath, feeling the fresh air fill his lungs, Eggsy felt almost- content. 

He took the underground train to headquarters, quickly striding to his office. Eggsy never would’ve imagined he got an office, of all things, but once he’d been knighted as Galahad, it was deemed necessary. Typically, he just used it as a place to kip incase he was too bust up from a mission and he didn’t want his mum or Daisy to see his injuries, but today he wanted to actually to be productive. Eggsy was just picturing the mountains and mountains of paperwork that undoubtedly awaited on his desk as he swung the door open, still twirling the Rainmaker in his left hand. 

So, imagine Eggsy’s surprise when he saw not paperwork, but Merlin himself, sitting on his desk. 

Eggsy abruptly let his hand fall down by his side, ineffectively hiding the Rainmaker from view. Technically, he wasn’t even supposed to take it home, but….Eggsy was somewhat paranoid, like most spies, and it was his weapon of choice. And it had been raining today, so…dual purposes!

However, Merlin didn’t say a single word about the umbrella in Eggsy’s hands. The Scotsman was staring intently at the tablet, his bald head bowed over it. Eggsy shifted his weight from side to side uncomfortably, unsure if the quartermaster had even noticed him. The slight creaking of the floorboards did the trick though. Merlin’s head snapped up, the man fixating Eggsy with a hard stare behind his Kingsman glasses. Eggsy swallowed nervously, wondering what was happening. He and Merlin had become closer since Eggsy had joined Kingsman, sure, but something about his eyes always made Eggsy feel like a recruit again. Like if he put one toe out of line, Merlin would have him removed from Kingsman-and hit with multiple amnesia darts- before he could say “Oxfords.” Or maybe it was just that Merlin knew everything- like, _literally everything_ \- that’d be enough to make anyone uneasy. Especially Eggsy, who thrived on privacy. 

“Galahad.” Merlin said firmly, with a swift incline of his head in Eggsy’s direction. “Good.”

The quartermaster quickly stood up, now towering over Eggsy. He swiped down on the tablet, closing whatever he’d been viewing before Eggsy could get a glance at it. He looked at the younger spy again, his jawline tight. 

“Come with me.”

With that, Merlin strode out of Eggsy’s office. He hastened to follow him, knowing that when Merlin spoke like that, you didn’t question him. 

Okay, maybe you questioned him a little bit. 

“What’s up, bruv?” Eggsy asked as he and Merlin strode through the corridors of the Kingsman base, presumably going to Merlin’s own office. (The thought alone was enough to make Eggsy nervous). “This about the Opera House again? I didn’t mean for it to explode, swear down-“

Merlin shot him a look, raising his eyebrows. Clearly meaning that he hadn’t know about that just yet. Kicking himself, Eggsy bit his lip, wondering what could possibly be going on that even had _Merlin_ distracted. Deciding not to comment on whatever Eggsy had done, Merlin moved faster, tossing a few words back over his shoulder at Eggsy as he did so. 

“New footage. Poppy. Do keep up.”

Heart rate increasing, Eggsy did as he was told. He now knew what had Merlin was frazzled. “Poppy” was their latest big crisis, based on various branches’ reports, but nobody was entirely sure what she was up to yet. All they knew was that she was based in America, and after V-Day, everyone at Kingsman was keeping an eye on psycho Americans. 

Well, specifically, Poppy was based in Kentucky, which was enough to stir up a million emotions within Eggsy, but that was beside the point.

Arriving at Merlin’s office, Eggsy obediently took a seat, knowing that Merlin would want to show him the footage first. The quartermaster efficiently plugged the tablet in the over screen project, projecting the video on the opposing white wall. Eggsy narrowed his eyes and it came into view. Poppy, a small red-haired woman, was surrounded by an array of people. They were all different sizes, ethnicities, and genders, but one thing unified them all: every single person had a bionic limb. Everywhere Eggsy looked, there were metal legs, arms, eyes, anything you can imagine. 

“They look like-“ he started to say, the words springing unbidden to his mouth. 

“Gazelle? Yes.” Merlin finished the thought for him. “I presume this is where Valentine… _acquired_ her.”

Eggsy swallowed, remembering how vicious his fight with Gazelle on V-Day had been. He’d barely beaten her, he knew that very well, and he didn’t want to think about a whole army of Gazelles coming after him. Pushing these thoughts aside, he focused his attention back on the film. 

The crowd had now formed a circle, with Poppy in the center. Smiling widely, she beckoned two individuals out of the horde. One was a middle aged man with two metal arms, and the other was a teenage girl with metal hands. Poppy made the two stand a few paces apart, with her in the middle. 

“Now,” Poppy said, the Southern twang evident in her voice. “You all know the purpose of these pairings. The goal is to incapacitate, but not to kill. Do whatever maiming you’d like though! The winner remains-unchanged. The loser however….will be taken for modifications. Both will eventually fight again, which will help determine if those modifications were a help or a hindrance.”

Eggsy shut his eyes, hurriedly grabbing out for the tablet and pausing the footage. He turned to Merlin, feeling his stomach churn. He hoped he didn’t look as disgusted as he felt, but he doubted it. Despite all his training, Eggsy was still not the best at hiding how he felt. 

“Is she sayin’ what I think she is?” he asked Merlin. He looked at him unblinkingly, not offering an answer. Eggsy grit his teeth together, knowing Merlin was going to make him say it, make him face it. 

“The psycho-bitch is going to make them fight each other, and whoever loses also loses a part of their body, which she’ll replace with metal….and then in the next fight, the metal is supposed to help them win.”

“Precisely.” Merlin said with a single nod of his head. 

“And if it doesn’t,” Eggsy said vehemently, warming up now. “She’ll just keep replacing more and more bits of them with bionic shit, until that’s all there is left, and then- she’ll have millions of fucking indestructible people. To annihilate the rest of us with.”

“You’re getting good at this, lad.” Merlin said offhandly, as if they were talking about bloody cricket. “I’ll need to keep an eye on my job.”

“Fuck, Merlin, we gotta stop her.” Eggsy said without missing a beat. “Valentine was bad, but Jesus _fuck_ , that’s some fucked up shit.” 

Before Merlin could respond, the footage came crackling. The screen momentarily went black, and then fuzzy, the way Eggsy’s TV used to if the antennae went crooked, and then it sparked back to life, the screen glaringly white now. Eggsy looked at Merlin, seeing that he hadn’t touched anything. Given the bewildered look that was on the Scotsman’s own face, he was as confused as Eggsy for once. Swiping up the tablet, Merlin tried turning off the footage altogether, but it was to no avail. Eggsy fixated his eyes on the screen, bracing himself for whatever was coming next. 

But, upon seeing it, Eggsy realized that he never could’ve possibly braced himself enough. 

Because Harry Hart was on the screen in front of him. 

He was just standing there, shaving off stubble intently. It was if he was looking into a mirror, except the mirror happened to peer right in Merlin’s fucking office. An eyepatch was stretched over his left eye, covering whatever scarring must’ve been there. And looking at the timestamp on the video, seeing that it was today’s exact day and time, knowing that this wasn’t old footage, knowing that this was live, knowing that _Harry_ was somewhere out there _alive_ , Eggsy mumbled the only thing that made sense. 

“ _Fuck_ me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lmk what you thought! Comments, follows, and kudos are always greatly appreciated <3

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not really sure where this is going yet, but I hope you enjoyed the little that there is! Also this is my first time writing fic in over a year so please be gentle.


End file.
